Heritage Action have received a comment from an artefact hunter on their post about how they try to use naive arguments to defend what they are doing to the archaeological record. He should have known better (
30/11/2014 at 09:41). Their response:
“Peter”, this is a conservation site and unless you’re committed to legal regulation of metal detecting in the public interest there’s no place for you here. Nor is there a place for a succession of simplistic and irrelevant statements about you all being “citizen archaeologists” and the Detectorists TV programme being more popular than Time Team and cases of archaeologists being caught stealing artefacts. Save it for the places where they ARE considered relevant. We aren’t interested.
There are issues to discuss, and the PAS was set up in 1997 to be a forum for such a discussion. In fact it never was, and never can be. Looking at the way metal detectorists have been reponding well shows why, and why this problem is not going to be solved by polite discussion and reasoning with reasoning people, the time for such dreams surely is long over. Let's see some action to deal with the Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record, in Britain and beyond.
My feelings precisely Paul! Inclusivity is the enemy of conservation if xploiters are included.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't archaeologists, the Government or even PAS who emasculated the official code or bitterly opposed every proposal for reform or wrecked the PAS, Time Team and Heritage Action forums with disruptive and obscene postings, it was detectorists, exclusively, and not a small number of them.
Let the way Britain should conserve its History be discussed by those who don't want to get their kicks by exploiting it for personal gain and let detectorists be told what has been decided when it has been decided. Like happens in other countries and in other British contexts.
Remember how birds egg collectors were invited to discuss how they should collect eggs? Nor do I !